CLASSICAL: Foretaste of the Prom season.

THE Chester Summer Music Festival has given us a good foretaste of the London Prom Season. Willard White and the Choral Arts Society of Washington opened the Royal Albert Hall series, and The Cardinall's Musick appear there shortly. So will Vassily Sinaisky and the BBC Philharmonic with Rachmaninov's Second symphony which he conducted for the first time in his life at Chester Cathedral last week. And Proms opener Belshazzar's Feast can be heard at Chester Cathedral tomorrow night.

Chester also gives a taste of possible future Proms stars with its lunchtime recitals. It was standing room only for 13-year old clarinettist Julian Bliss yesterday when all 170 seats at St Mary's Centre were occupied. String players have shone. Alexandra Wood brought a full lush tone from her Landolfi violin when she played Handel and Walton with pianist Huw Watkin last week, and finally charmed us with Kreisler's Tambourin Chinoise.

Three days ago we had a rarity, a viola recital. The Cinderella of the string instruments was how it was described by Liverpool born composer Malcolm Lipkin, whose music has been featured in the Festival. Certainly Sarah Jane Bradley relished the opportunity of stepping forward from her usual place in the Sorrell Quartet to play Handel and Brahms Sonatas with her pianist-husband Jonathan Ayerst.

They added a personal note by including Pierrot Dances, which Lipkin wrote forthem three years ago as a wedding present.

Another lady who shone was the glamorous Alison Balsam, who appeared high in the organ loft of Chester Cathedral with accompanist Quentin Thomas in a nigh-faultless 60 minutes, showing her to be one of the leading brass soloists in the country.

The Peter Eben suite inspired by Chagall's windows in Jerusalem was breathtaking. Her BBC Young Musicians Award was no fluke. And Thomas showed off his own virtuosity with Alan Ridout's Dance Suite for Solo Organ.

Young musicians emerge from the colleges these days with such technique that it is not surprising to find some fine string quartets appearing. The Doric, who played in St Johns nine days ago, shone in Haydn and gave us a rare opportunity of hearing the arid but romantic Third Quartet of Zemlinsky, teacher of Schoenberg, and the man who lost his girlfriend to Gustav Mahler.

Today the piano duo Philip Moore and Simon Crawford-Philips bring the series to a close at St Marys at 1.00pm. These concerts have now built up a substantial audience, especially when a local pianist like John Gough is allowed to stand up with the best. In past years Timothy Horton from Birkenhead and Chester's Graham Scott have pulled in the crowds, and doubtless after another successful Festival, Director Andrew Burn will be looking for another local celebrity to challenge the competition.